1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink, in particular, an ink suitable for use in ink-jet recording, and an ink-jet recording method using such an ink and ink-jet recording instruments containing the ink therein.
2. Related Background Art
Inks with greatly varying manners of being composed have been hitherto reported in respect to inks for writing utensils (fountain pens, marking pens, ball-point pens making use of a water-based ink, etc.) and for ink-jet recording. In particular, in recent years, detailed researches and developments has been made on various aspects such as composition and physical properties of inks because of a strong demand for improving the water fastness of images recorded on plain paper such as paper for copying, paper for reporting, notepaper and letter paper, which are commonly used in offices.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 2-296878, 2-255876 and 57-57760 disclose a method of improving the water fastness of the resulting recorded images.
In such a technique, there is however a potential problem that the water fastness of the recorded image may be insufficient, its quality may be deteriorated, its drying characteristics may be poor, or the stability or clogging resistance of an ink used may be impaired.